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Thursday, 19 November 2015

Citroën to withdraw from WTCC at the the end of 2016

Citroën Racing have announced that they will withdraw from the FIA World Touring Car Championship following the conclusion of the 2016 season.

The Versailles-based team, who only joined the WTCC in 2014 will quit the circuit racing series to focus fully on the World Rally Championship which is introducing a new set of regulations in 2017.

Since joining the WTCC, a first for the team which up until last year had only ever competed in rally events, Citroën Racing has been unstoppable, so far taking two Driver's and manufacturers titles, as well as sweeping the top three positions in the 2014 championship and the top four in this year's campaign.

They have also taken a staggering 36 race wins to date, failing to finish first on just nine occasions - six times in 2014 and three times so far this season.

The decision to leave the WTCC comes after Citroën revealed that they would drop either their WRC or WRC programme at the end of 2016.

They will continue in the WTCC next year with a scaled down effort of two cars with Sebastien Loeb moving across to Peugeot Sport's Rally World Cup squad. Multpile champions Yvan Muller and Jose Maria Lopez will stay witht he team with Ma Quing Hua's future so far uncertain.